Leading memcoins in 2024

Memcoins have become more than just the top trend of the crypto industry in 2023-2024: some analysts believe that these assets will be one of the catalysts of the next altcoin bull cycle or, in other words, the altcoin season. Over the past few years, many memcoins and meme tokens have emerged on the market, and some have managed to dislodge even major crypto projects.

1. Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin is the undisputed leader among memcoins and is still among the top ten largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization, bypassing even such giants of the crypto industry as:

With Dogecoin, the history of memcoins began, and hardly any of its competitors will manage to dislodge it from the pedestal — certainly not shortly.

The DOGE cryptocurrency is a favorite of world-famous billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk, who often posts tweets about his favorite memcoin. For example, in August 2024, Elon Musk posted a tweet with an image of his fictitious "Department of Government Efficiency," which in English abbreviated version is simply DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).

As of September 2024, the value of the DOGE cryptocurrency is estimated at $0.1, and its capitalization is $14.7 billion. Just imagine that the capitalization of the asset created for the sake of a joke is more significant than that of Bank of Shanghai and Domino's Pizza.

2. Shiba Inu (SHIB)

The second most capitalized memcoin, "stepping on the heels" of Dogecoin. In the crypto community Shiba Inu is even called "Dogecoin's killer," in a way, it is true because this cryptocurrency has a developed ecosystem that continues to grow.

For example, the Shiba Inu ecosystem already includes:

ShibaSwap decentralized exchange,
Shibarium L2 or Layer-2 blockchain,
Shib Name identity protocol,
Shiba Eternity game universe,
and Shib the Metaverse.

At the same time, the developers do not plan to stop and are already working on solutions such as the WOOFVertise advertising platform and the SHY Mode privacy protocol.

In September 2024, the SHIB memcoin capitalization reached $8.2 billion, and its exchange rate reached $0.000013. These figures have more than doubled over the past year.

3. Pepe (PEPE)

The Pepe meme token has breathed new life into the memcoin environment, as most similar assets were either dog-based or cat-based. The anthropomorphic frog Pepe, on which the eponymous meme token was based, has become one of the most popular internet memes with this animal and has been known since 2008 — long before the first memcoin was created.

The character behind the Pepe meme was based on the Boy's Club comic strip by Matt Fury. Later, several meme variants appeared, such as "Sad Frog" or "Feels Frog". However, the Pepe meme token was based on Smug Frog, the most well-known and widespread variant.

Over the past year, the capitalization of the PEPE cryptocurrency has grown more than 10 times — from $311 million to $3.22 billion, thanks to which it has secured its place in the top three memcoins.

4. dogwifhat (WIF)

This meme token further proves that memcoins based on "dog" memes continue to take over the crypto industry. Four of the top five meme tokens are based on memes about dogs even though the meme token lacks any utility or applicability, dogwifhat gathered a large number of favorites about enriching its early investors like many other famous memecoins.

WIF was one of the first world-famous meme tokens on the Solana blockchain, which became popularized by another meme token, BONK, which will also be discussed in this article. Moreover, dogwifhat surpassed Bonk in capitalization, although it was released later than the latter, famous Influencers played some role in this, and the meme-token WIF was even advertised in Las Vegas.

In less than a year the capitalization of dogwifhat rose from $115 million to $1.54 billion — a little less than 15 times. During the same period, the WIF meme token went from $0.17 to $1.5, even considering the summer correction in the crypto market in 2024.

5. Floki (FLOKI)

Another meme token was created along the lines of Shiba Inu, another favorite of Elon Musk. Once, the entrepreneur even made a joke tweet that Floki is now the new CEO of Twitter (this was before the social network was renamed X). Incidentally, the meme token itself was created by the Shiba Inu community, hence this similarity of memes.

The Floki meme is based on Shiba Inu, but it is presented as a belligerent dog wearing a helmet with horns. Like Shiba Inu, Floki Inu has a well-developed ecosystem, which keeps it in the top five meme tokens. This ecosystem includes:

Valhalla gaming metaverse,
NFT marketplace Floki Places,
a DeFi app store for using the Floki meme token,
and the educational platform University of Floki.

Within a year, the capitalization of the FLOKI meme-token has grown from $159 million to $1.22 billion, or about 7.5 times. Its exchange rate has grown by about 600% and now stands at ~$0.00013 as of September 2024.

6. Bonk (BONK).

This meme token became a real catalyst for the growing popularity of memcoins in the Solana ecosystem. Initially, Bonk token was distributed as an airdrop to owners of the first Solana Saga smartphone, after which the real hype for memcoins in the Solana blockchain began.

Initially, each Solana Saga owner received $10 in Bonk meme tokens, but the growth was so rapid that after a few weeks, the value of the free tokens exceeded the price of the smartphone itself. The remaining models were quickly sold out, and the Solana team rushed to release a new Saga II device.

In the last year alone, the BONK meme token brought its investors more than 6600% return, and the capitalization of this asset grew from $12.9 million to $1.22 billion.

7. Notcoin (NOT)

Notcoin became not the first but the most popular meme token in the TON ecosystem. It started the trend for clicker games in the form of mini-applications in the Telegram messenger.

The Notcoin meme token was launched with the support of the TON Foundation, as indicated by the fact that NOT is one of the assets, along with TON and USDT, that is used to pay transaction fees on the TON blockchain after the implementation of the "gas-free transactions" standard called W5.

Notcoin also played a significant role in popularizing the Telegram messenger itself: after the project's success, dozens of different tappers began to appear, some of which managed to attract more users than Notcoin itself. As a result, Telegram's active audience is already approaching 1 billion.

As of September 2024, the price of Notcoin is at $0.0083, which is almost 20% less than when it was listed on exchanges in May of the same year. However, this is due to the general decline in the crypto market and it is likely that once the correction is over, the meme token NOT's growth will resume as its price high is at $0.028. Notcoin has a market capitalization of $857 million — it is the first meme on our list to have this figure below $1 billion, but this could change significantly.

Conclusion

Although the listed memcoins have brought their investors, especially early investors, many X's, it is worth considering the high risks due to the intense volatility of such assets and investing only the part of funds that is not afraid to lose.